‘Ignorance and arrogance’ – Duma speaker blames US for international crises

The United States’ arrogance and lack of awareness of international problems that it tries to solve is the main reason behind the ongoing crisis of the system of international institutions and global security, the Russian Lower House speaker has said.

“The synthesis of ignorance and arrogance multiplied by the
blockade of inconvenient information and sometimes by outright
slander has already brought forth tragedies in the Middle East
and Central Asia and in other regions of the world. Besides, it
caused a misbalance in the whole system of international
institutions, including those in the security sphere,” State
Duma chairman Sergey Naryshkin said at the chamber’s Monday
session with political experts.

“As a result, the whole world is in a crisis situation,”
he said.

“A very demonstrative and even symbolic example is the great
number of anecdotal statements made by the US State Department on
the situation in Ukraine. They all demonstrate how weak is their
handling of the problems that they are rushing to solve,”
Naryshkin said.

He also said that the attempts to ignore Russia’s opinion on
major international issues were counterproductive and useless.

“I think that Russia can and should make a special input in
practically all discussions on key international problems. This
is how it has been for centuries and even for that sole reason
the attempts to isolate Russia, to shrug off Russia’s opinion,
are both counterproductive and useless,” Naryshkin said.

Naryshkin’s statement came shortly after German Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the press that he considered it
impossible to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to the
Group of Seven summit this year, as suggested by German leftist
politicians.

Also on Monday, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry
Peskov said that Russia was open for interaction with foreign
nations even though it did not intend to impose its participation
on international summits.

“The President has repeatedly stated that we had never had in
mind to impose ourselves on someone in any possible format,”
Rossiiskaya Gazeta quoted Peskov as saying. “As before, we
are open for all types of cooperation and interaction. We have
been open and we remain open,” he said.